|E 263 

I . G3 S7 \ ^ 



DR. STEVENS'S DISCOURSE 



BEFORE THE 



GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



SAVANNAH 



/%^l 



^ 



K.PtL. 



DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



GEOKGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



SAVANNAH, 



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1841. 



By WILLIAM BACOxN^STEVENS. 



SAVANNAH. 

PUBLISHED BY A RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETY. 



MDGCCXLI. 



/" 7-. : 3 



BOSTON: 

FREEMAN AND BOLLES, PRINTERS, 

WASHINGTON STREET. 



Savannah, 22d December, 1840. 
Dear Sik, — At a meeting of the Board of Managers of the Georgia Historical 
Society this evening, a letter from the Honorable John Macpherson Berrien, its 
President, was read, declaring his inability, in consequence of a calamity which he 
had been called to encounter, to comply with his appointment of the Dth of March 
last, as orator for the ensuing anniversary. The resignation having been received 
and accepted, you were unanimously elected to supply his place. 

In transmitting to you this notice of your election to deliver tlie next historical 
discourse, permit me to indulge the hope, that you may not find it inconsistent with 
your professional avocations to meet, even at this late hour, the wishes of the So- * 
ciety. > 

I am, dear sir, with great regard and esteem, yours truly, 

I. K. TEFFT, 
William B. Stevens, M. D., Savannah. Corresponding Secretary.' 

Savannah, December, 24, 1840. 

Dear Sir, — Your polite communication of the 22d inst.,has occasioned me much 
hesitation and perplexity. 

I am aware, that the brief space which remains prior to the I2th of February, is 
not sufficient for the production of a discourse of that erudite and elaborate charac- 
ter, which such an occasion demands ; and yet, unwilling to permit the second an- 
niversary of the Society to pass without its appropriate celebration, I am con- 
strained, though with much diffidence, to yield to the request of the Board of 
Managers, even under all the disadvantages which inevitably attend the accept- 
ance of their appointment. Respectfully yours, 

WILLIAM BACON STEVEN^. 

I. K. Tefft, Esq., Cor. Sec. S^c. 



Savannah, 13th February, 1841. 

Dear Sir, — The following resolution was unanimously adopted at the annual 
meeting of the Georgia Historical Society., held last evening: 

" Resolved, That the Corresponding Secretary be directed to express to Doct. Ste- 
vens the gratification of the Society, at his eloquent and appropriate historical dis- 
course this day delivered — that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication, 
and that the discourse be incorporated in the next volume issued by the Society." 

Feeling unable to express to you the high estimation which the Society entertain 
of your instructive performance, I will merely transmit you the above resolution, 
hoping that you may find it in your power to comply with their unanimous request. 
Very truly your friend, I. K. TEFFT, Cor. Sec. G. H. S. 

William B. Stevens, M. D., Savannah. 

Savannah, 15th February, 1841. 
Dear Sir, — The resolution of the Georgia Historical Society, so handsomely con- 
veyed in your note of the 13th instant, is peculiarly gratifying to my feelings. 

In placing a copy in your hands for publication, 1 beg leave to state, that it was 
prepared in haste, amidst the paramount claims of an active profession. 
Yours, with sincere esteem, 

WILLIAM BACON STEVENS. 
I. K. Tefft, Esq., Cor. Sec'y. Geo. Hist. Sac. 



DISCOURSE. 



The period of our Revolution has been termed " The 
heroic age of American history." The expression is beau- 
tiful and appropriate, but loses much of its adaptation, if re- 
garded as a mere classical allusion. In the mystic stories 
of early Greece, this term was applied to a period memora- 
ble for the triumphs of physical strength ; it was an heroic 
age of man, as a creature of prowess and of arms, and had 
no reference to his nobler nature, that " bright image of eter- 
nity within." The epoch of the Revolution, however, rests 
not its claims to this distinguishing epithet, upon the exhi- 
bition of any corporeal qualities, real or fabulous; but upon 
that union of great natural endowments with the holy prin- 
ciples of religion ; with high developments of mind ; and 
with all the potent influences of a refining civilization. 

* As the early events connected with the Revolution in Georgia, which are related 
in this Discourse, have never before been published, it is proper to state, that the 
autliorities consulted are Colonial Documents from the Board of Trade, Plantation, 
and State Paper offices; comprising the journals of the Assemblies, correspondence 
of the Governor and his Majesty's Secretaries, and memorials and petitions from 
agents and pubfic bodies ; obtained by the State from England. Original letters, 
and documents, furnished through tlie liberal courtesy of I. K. Tefft and William 
N. Habersham, Esqrs. Manuscript notes to Ramsay's History of South Carolina 
by General James Jackson, kindly loaned me by his son, Col. Joseph W. Jackson. 
Files of the Georgia Gazette for 1774-5-6. Parliamentary Debates on the American 
question, and a few minor sources of information. Those who compare tiie state- 
ments here made, with those detailed in McCall's " History of Georgia," will find 
that we agree in scarcely a single date, or in the constituents of a single event ; 
sometimes differing four or five years as to the period of the same transaction. I 
have endeavored to verify all the dates, statistics, and facts, introduced by a careful 
reference to official papers, authenticated documents, and contemporaneous corres- 
pondence ; having several interesting letter-books of that period by me, where its 
stirring scenes were noted as they transpired, and concerning the accuracy of which 
there can be no mistake. 

The Societies alluded to at the close of the Discourse, united with us in our anni- 
versary celebration. W. B. S. 

1 



6 

With this rare combination, then, how richly does the era 
of our struggle for freedom merit the appellation of an 
" heroic age ;" for the spectacle then presented, of thirteen 
colonies rising in unison against the oppressions of their 
common mother, and by one long, sanguinary, but success- 
ful war, securing their independence, had never, till then, 
been witnessed by the world. It required heroes, to con- 
ceive the design ; heroes, to execute it ; and none but 
heroes, after leading armies to victory, and a nation to free- 
dom, could resign in peace the laurels of war, and retire 
from the scene of their glory, at the very moment of its 
brightest lustre. 

'' Then, tell me not of years of old, 
Of ancient hearts and clime, 
Ours is the land, the age of gold, 
And ours the hallowed time." 

From among the thronging incidents of colonial history, 
I have selected for consideration, this day, the origin and 
progress of revolutionary proceedings in Georgia. Upon 
this topic, nothing comparatively is known, and while, in all 
the older States, this period has been almost stripped of its 
interest, through the diligent labors of orators and histo- 
rians, it has hitherto, for the want of authenticated docu- 
ments, been a blank page in our written and traditionary 
annals. In the only history of Georgia which has been 
published, the momentous transactions consequent on the 
passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 are entirely unnoticed, 
and the whole train of events in this province which fol- 
lowed, until the commencement of hostilities, are scarcely 
mentioned, or, when mentioned, are so erroneous in point 
of time, place, and fact, as only to perplex and embarrass, 
rather than instruct and enlighten. The perusal of the 
interesting manuscript volumes, obtained through the muni- 
ficence of the State from England, together with a variety 
of rare and original papers, both narrative and epistolary, 
has induced me to attempt to supply, if possible, this defi- 
ciency, and exhibit to you, for the first time with the cer- 
tainty of documentary evidence, the position sustained by 
Georgia from the imposition of stamp duties, until she united 
herself with the other colonies in the Continental Congress. 
To trace the progress of free principles in America would 
be to epitomize her whole history. From 1619, when the Vir- 



ginians, under the wise administration of Sir George Yeardly, 
gave the new world the first example of legislative liberty, 
to 1776, the fundamental doctrines of freedom, were boldly 
maintained, and rigidly supported. Of these doctrines, that 
which recognised resistance to taxation without representa- 
tion, and which ultimately issued in the Revolution, was ear- 
liest developed, and earliest tested. Indeed, for more than 
a century before the passage of the Stamp Act, the rapa- 
cious exactions of royal Governors presented numerous op- 
portunities for resistance on this very point, which were not 
misimproved. The attempt of the West India Company, in 
1654, to derive a revenue from the inhabitants of New Neth- 
erlands, (now New York,) the efforts to levy taxes in Vir- 
ginia in 1662, and the arbitrary tallage of Lovelace, on the 
shores of the Delaware, in 1667; together with the insult 
offered to popular opinion by burning publicly, before the 
town-house, the votes of eight towns on Long Island against 
the tyrannic imposts of the Governor in 1670 ; and the revo- 
lution in Massachusetts in 1689, created in part by the ex- 
tortionary measures of Sir Edmund Andros ; combined to 
radicate in the minds of the colonists the clearest idea of their 
rights, as subjects and as men, and prepared the way for 
resisting, on a broader arena, the flagidous schemes of the 
Parliament of 1765. 

One of the results of the English aristocratic revolution of 
1688, was the general recognition of that unalterable law of 
nature, which the Magna Charta of Runnymede, nearly five 
hundred years before, had dimly shadowed forth, that pro- 
perty could not be taxed but with the consent of its proper 
representatives ; and the Royal Assembly of New York, 
catching the spirit of this fundamental principle, resolved, 
three years after, that " no tax whatever shall be levied on His 
Majesty's subjects in the Province, or on their estates, on 
any pretence whatever, but by the act and consent of the 
representatives of the people, in general assembly con- 
vened." The act, indeed, was rejected by King Wil- 
liam, and severe task-masters sent over to discipline them into 
obedience ; but the spirit of resistance, hke the trees descri- 
bed by Pliny near the Red Sea, only took deeper root in 
consequence of the storms designed to eradicate it. 

In 1696, a pamphlet appeared in England, asserting the 
power of the Parliament to tax the colonies, and recom- 



8 

mending the plan ; but it was immediately answered from 
this side of the Adantic, by several replies, which denied 
the right, and repudiated the design. It is indeed remark- 
able, when the tendencies of the Americans to self-govern- 
ment were so early discovered, and the indomitable spirit of 
Hberty so conspicuously manifested, that a different course 
was not pursued, rather than the oppressive subjugating 
measures which, the common experience of humanity should 
have instructed the cabinet, could only ultimate in resist- 
ance and alienation. 

As far back as 1701, the Lords of Trade publicly de- 
clared, " that the independency, the colonies thirst after, 
is now notorious;" and in 1705, it was openly published 
in England, that " the colonists will, in process of time, cast 
off" their allegiance, and set up a government of their own ;" 
and yet, that same year, a memorial urging a direct tax on 
the colonists was transmitted by a Royalist to the Lords of 
Trade, but both the Board and the Ministry wisely suffered 
it to pass unnoticed. 

In 1728, Sir William Keith suggested to the King the 
proposition to extend the duties of stamps upon parchment 
and paper already existing in England, to the plantations 
in America ; but the plan of the Ex-Governor, as also a 
similar suggestion made to Walpole in 1739, received no 
serious consideration from the high officers of the state. 

In 1754 the commissioners assembled at Albany, to treat 
with the Six Nations, proposed a plan of colonial union, 
the expenses of which, originally defrayed by the Treasury 
Board, were to be reimbursed, by a tax levied on the Pro- 
vinces by an act of the Parliament. But the able letters 
of Doct. Franklin to Governor Shirley, which this scheme 
immediately elicited, stated so luminously the objections to 
such taxation, that a parliamentary writer, in 1778, declared, 
that those who read them attentively would find, that 
scarcely any thing new had been advanced on the subject 
since. 

Towards the close of 1759, Mr. Pitt wrote to Governor 
Farquier, of Virginia, that he designed to raise a revenue 
from the Americans ; but the Governor's reply, representing 
the disturbance it would occasion, induced him to change 
his opinions, and rehnquish his design. The expensive 
war with Spain, which Great Britain had engaged in at the 



solicitation, and for the defence of the colonies, and in 
which Georgia, through the military services of Oglethorpe, 
had largely participated, rendered the state of the finances 
desperate, and to replenish the treasury, Mr. Huske, a 
native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, insinuated to Mr. 
Greenville the propriety of carrying into effect, what had so 
long remained a mere speculative scheme ; and during the 
winter of 1764 and 1765 the bill entided "an act for 
granting and applying stamp duties," &c. was digested, 
and on the 22d of March, 1765, received the assent of the 
king. It was a fine sentiment of Edmund Burke, that " an 
English government must be administered in the spirit of 
one, or it will that moment cease to exist." The thirteen 
American Colonies, at the ratification of peace in 1763, 
were all loyal provinces, enjoying a high degree of com- 
mercial and agricultural prosperity, for they reposed in 
peace, under the chartered rights of " an English govern- 
ment, wisely administered in the spirit of one." But their 
quietude was of short duration ; like the blissful dreams of 
peace which visit the pillow of the soldier on the morn of bat- 
tle. They had hardly enjoyed the sweet vision, ere the clarion 
trump of freedom's watchmen awoke them to their danger 
and their duty. The Assembly of Virginia, the only provin- 
cial legislature in session when the news of the passage of 
the act arrived, immediately passed resolves, denying the 
right of parliament to tax the colonies, and nearly every 
province echoed the spirit' of the Old Dominion. Georgia, 
then but thirty-two years old, felt keenly this flagrant breach 
of that principle of the English constitution, which declared, 
that no Englishman should be bound by any laws, to which 
he had not consented ; and, upon the reception of the Mas- 
sachusetts letter, proposing a convention of delegates at 
New York, Mr. Alexander Wylly, speaker of the Commons 
House of Assembly, despatched expresses to the members, 
sixteen of whom, (about two thirds of the entire body,) 
assembled in Savannah on the 2d September, 1765, and 
responded, by a general letter intimating their hearty co- 
operation in every measure for the support of their common 
rights. Through the influence of Governor Wright they, 
like Virginia, and North Carolina, were prevented from 
sending delegates. In a letter of Governor Wright to the 
Lords of Trade, dated November 9th, 1765, he says, "I 



10 

am very sorry to acquaint your lordships, that too much of 
the rebellious spirit of the northern colonies has already 
shown itself here ;" and, on the 22d of the same month, he 
writes, " I am still in a very perplexed situation with re- 
spect to the stamp duty, not yet having received the law, 
or the scrape of a pen from any of his majesty's ministers, 
or officers concerning it ; nor is the paper or officer to dis- 
tribute it, yet come to this Province. Opposition from the 
populace, I am apprehensive of, and, from what has hitherto 
passed, my Lords, I have too much reason to expect, that 
whenever the officer arrives he will be intimidated from 
acting:, as the officers in the northern colonies have been." 

Among the hosts of pamphleteers which this crisis ori- 
ginated, were William Knox, Esq., the Assembly's agent, 
and Mr. Campbell, the Crown agent for Georgia. The 
former published a letter addressed to a friend in America, 
entitled " The claims of the Colonies to an exemption from 
internal taxes, imposed by authority of Pariiament, exam- 
ined ;" and the latter, an octavo tract of one hundred and 
fourteen pages, was styled, " Regulations lately made con- 
cerning the colonies, and the taxes imposed upon them, 
considered." Both defended the stamp bill, and both gave 
much umbrage to Georgians, who were especially incensed 
at the over-zealous officiousness of their agent, in entering 
the lists against the Americans. From the agent of the 
Crown they expected nothing better; but they presumed 
that Mr. Knox would at least have exhibited the prudence 
of silence, v/hatever might have been his private views ; 
and therefore, at the meeting of the Assembly, Nov. 15th, 
1765, the House "resolved to give instructions to the Com- 
mittee of Correspondence to acquaint William Knox, agent 
for this Province, that the Province has no further occasion 
for his services." 

In common with many- others, Mr. Knox contended, that 
the colonies were virtually represented, but the excellent 
James Habersham, President of His Majesty's Council, a 
true loyalist, but a true patriot, in his private reply to Mr. 
Knox, dated 28th October, 1765, thus exposed the fallacy 
of the assertion : " It appears to me, an insult on the most 
common understanding, to talk of our being virtually repre- 
sented, and I must own, I cannot fix any precise idea to 
the word virtual when we are speaking of the indefeasible 



11 

birthright of a British American subject. Surely our re- 
siding in a country and climate, where our persons and pro- 
perties are subject to a thousand casualties and inconven- 
iences (unknown to our fellow subjects in Great Britain, 
and ultimately for their benefit,) should not deprive us of 
being tried by a jury, or subject us to a taxation by two 
Legislative bodies. One of them ^ve indeed cheerfully 
submit to, because chosen by ourselves to represent us, 
and, as they know our situation and circumstances, they 
are consequently best qualified to impose any necessary 
burdens on us ; but the other, cannot (I speak with sub- 
mission) surely think themselves possessed of those very 
essential and absolutely necessary quahfications." " The 
annual tax raised here for the support of our internal policy, 
is full as much as the inhabitants can bear. And suppose 
the stamps here produce only one eighth of what they 
would in South Carolina, it would amount to as much in 
one year as our tax laws will raise in three ; and perhaps 
we have not five thousand pounds in gold and silver 
come into the province in five years, though the act re- 
quires it in one. If this is really the case, as I really be- 
lieve it is, how must every inhabitant shudder at the thought 
of the act taking place, which, according to my present ap- 
prehension, must inevitably ruin them." 

Such were the calm and judicious views of this distin- 
guished man in reference to the operation of this law in 
Georgia. It was not possible, therefore, for them to remain 
passive under such exactions, and, in common with the 
other colonies, they determined to check them in their inci- 
piency. If the exercise of unjust power was submitted to 
once, it would establish a precedent of the most hazardous 
character, and the Stamp Act was opposed, not so much 
from its intrinsic onerousness, as from its involving a ques- 
tion, on the issue of which, depended the liberty or the sla- 
very of America. Truly did the profound Locke say, 
that "Men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no 
means to escape it, till they are perfectly under it, and there- 
fore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of it, 
but to prevent it." And to prevent it they were deter- 
mined, or perish in the attempt. 

On the evening of the 26th of October, the anniversary of 
His Majesty's accession, there was a great tumult in the 



12 

streets of Savannah, and several effigies of obnoxious per- 
sons, after being paraded through them, were publicly burnt. 
These transactions drew from Governor Wright a condem 
natory proclamation, but it formed no barrier to the irrepres- 
sible excitement ; it was but placing an obstruction in the 
stream of popular indignation, which only deepened its 
channel, and added impetuosity to its current. The Act 
was to take effect from the 1st of November, 1765, yet, as 
neither the papers nor the distributing officer had arrived, 
the Governor, by advice of his Council, on the 31st of Octo- 
ber, stopped the issue of all warrants and grants for land, 
and gave let-passes to the vessels, with a clause certifying 
the non-arrival of any stamped papers, or officer, in the Pro- 
vince. On the 5th of December, His Majesty's ship of war 
Speedwell, Capt. Fanshaw, with the stamps, arrived in the 
River, and the papers were secretly transferred to Fort Hal- 
ifax, and placed under the care of the Commissary ; for the 
" Liberty Boys," as they were then termed, had entered 
into an association to prevent the distribution of the papers, 
and to compel the officer to resign as soon as he arrived. 
To oppose these measures, Governor Wright summoned 
all his energies, and labored day and night, in public and 
in private, and by his commanding influence, ably seconded 
by his Council, was temporarily successful. Secret meet- 
ings, however, were often held, all business was stopped, 
and the Province reniained in a state of anxious agitation. 
On the 2d of July, about 3 P. M., Captains Milledgeand 
Powell, informed the Governor that nearly two hundred 
Liberty Boys had assembled together, threatening to break 
open the Fort, and destroy the papers. The Governor, 
arming himself, immediately ordered the two companies of 
Rangers, numbering fifty-four men, to attend him, marched 
with them to the Fort, took out the stamps, placed them in 
a cart, and escorted by the military, conveyed them to his 
mansion. The people looked on in sullen silence, but it 
was a silence that gave the Governor so much alarm, that 
for many days he kept a guard of forty men over his house, 
and for four nights was in such anxiety and fear that he 
never removed his clothes. The next day, about 1 o'clock, 
the Governor, by preconcerted signals, was made ac- 
quainted with the arrival of Mr. Agnus, the stamp distrib- 
utor, at Tybee, and fearing the rage of the citizens, imme- 



13 

diately despatched an armed scout-boat with two or three 
friends of the government, who, with much secrecy, and a 
charge to allow him to speak to no one, brought him to the 
city on the 4th, where he was received by the Governor at 
his house, and that afternoon took the required oaths. But 
a few days residence at the Governor's, even with a guard 
mounted night and day, convinced him of his insecurity, 
and in a fortnight he left the city. Nor were these feelings 
confined to Savannah ; the mountains echoed back the 
voice of the sea-board, and every stream, as it rolled to the 
ocean, bore a tribute of patriotism on its bosom. The 
whole Province was aroused ; parties of armed men assem- 
bled in various places ; society was convulsed, and its tu- 
multuous heavings threatened general ruin and desolation. 
Then was exhibited, in an eminent degree, the zeal and en- 
ergy of the Governor, and such was his resolution and 
w^eightof character, that for a time, all rebellious proceedings 
ceased, and he could write, on the 15th of January, 1766, 
" every thing at present is easy and quiet, and I hope peace 
and confidence will be restored in general." A few days 
served to dissipate this hope. About the 20th, menacing 
letters were sent to Governor Wright ; President Habers- 
ham was waylaid at night, his new and well-stored house 
threatened with destruction, and he was obliged to take re- 
fuge in the garrisoned mansion of the Governor. 

Towards the close of January, a body of six hundred 
men assembled within a few miles of the city, and intimated 
to the Governor that unless the papers were removed from 
the place, they would march thither, raze his dwelling to 
the ground, attack the Fort, and destroy the Stamps. The 
Governor immediately sent the papers down to Fort 
George, at Cockspur, and placed them in charge of a Cap- 
tain, two subalterns and fifty privates of the Rangers. But 
even this was not deemed a sufficient security, and on the 
3d of February, they were once more removed, and finally 
deposited on board the man-of-war which had brought 
them to the colony. 

On the 4th of February, the town was again alarmed by 
the appearance on the common of between two and three 
hundred men, with arms and colors, clamorous for the re- 
dress of their grievances. The company of Rangers was 
ordered up from Cockspur, and all the regulars and volun- 

2 



14 

teers, (for the Governor dared not call out the militia, lest, 
as he said, "he should arm more against than for him,") 
together with a party of marines and seamen from the 
Speedwell, under Captain Fanshaw, were marshaled for 
its defence. The force of the assailants was larger, but 
their numerical strength was more than counterbalanced, 
by the superior discipline and equipments of the governor's 
party. For several hours the aspect of affairs was critical, 
and lowering, and suspense added its harrowing influences 
to the trepidation of alarm. To the Provincials, the mo- 
ment was pregnant with the most solemn consequences. 
Should they advance ! it would be rebellion. Should they 
retire! it would consummate their subjugation. The more 
daring and impetuous, urged them onward, but the cau- 
tious and discerning, counseled prudence, and after a few 
hours' parley with the Governor, in which nothing material 
was gained, they differed so much among themselves that, 
by evening, nearly all had dispersed, though a few at night 
burned an effigy of the Governor, holding in his hand the 
offensive circular of secretary Conway, of October 24th, 
1765. 

The situation of Governor Wright was one of singular 
trial and difficulty ; the Province was on the verge of civil 
war, and one act of indiscretion would have plunged it into 
its most ensanguined horrors. The whole military force of 
the colony, consisted of two troops of Rangers, of sixty men 
each, and thirty of the Royal American Regiment, in all, 
one hundred and fifty men, officers and privates, who were 
distributed in five forts, widely separated, with no possibility 
of concerted action, and totally inadequate to sustain his 
executive authority. With this handful of soldiers, he had 
to contend with faction and disloyalty ; and so inefficient 
did he deem them, that he was on the point of writing to 
General Gage, and Lord Colville for further support. On 
the arrival of the stamps, there were between sixty and 
seventy sail in port waiting for clearance. The whole ex- 
porting produce of the province was shipped on board 
these vessels, and the necessities of the case seemed so 
urgent, that though the people refused to use stamps for 
any other purpose, they consented to employ them to clear 
out their ships, by which means the port was opened, 
though the courts remained closed, and every species of 



15 

judicial business was suspended. Such a course, gave 
much umbrage to the other colonies, and particularly to 
South Carolina. Governor Wright was termed by the 
Carolinians " a parricide," and Georgia " a pensioned gov- 
ernment," which had " sold her birthright for a mess of 
pottage, and whose inhabitants should be treated as slaves, 
without ceremony." Nor did they stop at invectives, and 
denunciations; they resolved, "that no provisions should be 
shipped to that infamous colony, Georgia ;" " that every 
vessel trading there should be burnt ;" and " that whoso- 
ever should traffic with them should be put to death ;" 
and these were not idle threats, for two vessels, about sail- 
ing for Savannah, were captured before they had cleared 
the Charleston bar, were taken back to the city, condemned, 
and, with their cargoes, destroyed. But the injustice of 
these measures towards Georgia, will be evident, when it 
is remembered, that, through the irresolution of Governor 
Bull, the port of Charleston itself was opened, under pre- 
tence that no stamped papers were to be had, when, in 
fact, they were lodged by his authority, in Fort Johnson ; 
whence, overawed by the populace, he dared not remove, 
or use them. Charleston, also, was a city of many thou- 
sand inhabitants, and its Governor, hesitating and timorous, 
while Savannah had hardly as many hundreds, controlled 
by a chief magistrate, whose energy and decision could 
neither be wearied by importunity, nor daunted by danger. 
Georgia did not deserve this reproach, for every thing 
which a province similarly situated could do, was done, and 
she rested not from her efforts, till the repeal of the act, 
and a change of ministry brought with them a temporary 
quiet and repose. In the great contest for popular rights, 
which began in 1765, and continued until the formation of 
the confederated government, every variety of character, 
interest, and passion, was enlisted. The cause was just 
and holy, but the instruments whereby it was achieved, too 
often, like the sword of Turnus, were forged in the fires of 
angry passion ; and not, like the heaven-made weapon of 
^neas, tempered with virtue and patriotism. It is not ne- 
cessary, because we have secured our independence, that 
we should sanction all the intemperate measures, which, 
under the name of freedom, were enacted by the factious 
turbulance of the populace. The principles, and the deeds, 



16 / 

of many of the sons of liberty, were far from harmonizing 
with the spirit they professed, or the cause they espoused, 
and they degraded that cause, when they made it a screen 
for political licentiousness, for incendiary revenge, and for 
exemption from every law, human and divine. Especially 
was it to be deplored, when, as in the instance just recited, 
neighboring colonies were arrayed against each other, 
though both were struggling for the same end. While, in 
the ardor of impassioned feeling, they exclaimed with St. 
Paul, " I would they were even cut off, which trouble you," 
they forgot the injunction of the same Apostle, "Brethren, 
use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love, 
serve one another." Their malign anathemas and their 
restrictive edicts, only evinced the tyranny of irresponsible 
power, and were not the products of a liberal principle. 

We love liberty, true, and righteous liberty ; we love her, 
as she sits enthroned on mind ; dispelling its prejudices, 
illuming its darkness, and enlarging its borders. We love 
her, as she hovers over the press, unfettering its power, 
enhancing its influence, and causing it, like the tree of life 
planted in Eden, to " scatter its leaves for the healing of the 
nations." We love her, as she stands by the altar of reli- 
gion, where, with one hand upon the scriptures of our com- 
mon faith, and the other upon the head of charity, she lifts 
her eyes of hope to heaven, her bosom, unsullied by big- 
otry, heaving only to the pulsations of a catholic benevo- 
lence. We love her, as she presides, our guardian genius, 
in the capitol of our nation ; a temple more glorious than 
that erected to her by the Roman Gracchus, on the summit 
of Aventine ; her shield, the charter of our rights, her cap 
and staff, the insignia of our independence. We love thee, 
Liberty ! We venerate thy glorious name ! Our fathers sealed 
themselves as thine by a covenant of blood, and we, their 
children, eschewing a saturnalian freedom, would each, like 
another Hannibal, place his hand upon thy altar, and swear 
eternal hate to despotism and tyranny. 

The restoration of order by the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
was, as Governor Wright well expressed it, " but a tempo- 
rary calm." On the 6th of January, 1767, Capt. Philips, 
commanding the Royal Americans in South Carolina and 
Georgia, wrote to the Governor, stating the barrack -neces- 
saries he required, and desiring to know where he could 



^ 17 

procure them. The Governor sent the letter, with a mes- 
sage, to the Assembly, on the 20th, and on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary the House returned for answer, that "they humbly 
conceive their complying with the requisition, would be a 
violation of the trust reposed in them by their constituents, 
and founding a precedent they by no means think them- 
selves justifiable in introducing ;" and the Governor, finding 
them inflexible, and that nothing was or could be done with 
the terms of the " mutiny act," had only the mortification 
to transmit their proceedings to His Majesty's ministers. 

This act of Parliament, for quartering troops upon the 
Americans, and making them responsible for the means 
of subsistence and transportation, was but another phasis of 
the plan of taxation, and under whatever form such a prin- 
ciple was avowed, it could never be countenanced or sus- 
tained. The British Constitution solemnly guaranteed to 
every man the property which he had honestly acquired, 
and left the disposal of it to his own election, with which, 
neither corporations or government could at all interfere, 
without his consent, expressed by himself or his accredited 
representative. If the Americans could be taxed without 
their agreement, by any laws of whatever name, or if sol- 
diers could be quartered in their houses without their con- 
sent, it was a palpable violation of the " indefeasible birth- 
right of a British subject," and justified the language of the 
Massachusetts Assembly to their Agent, that if they were 
taxed without representation they were slaves. It was in 
truth, making the Americans " tenants at will of liberty," 
a tenure from which they were liable to be ejected at any 
moment, and which reduced them from the condition of 
free subjects, to the ignominious vassalage of bondmen. 
Nor would the condition of things have been altered had the 
King and Ministry been of a lenient temper. It was the 
principle which the Colonists contended for, and they justly 
reasoned with Cicero, that though the sovereign did not op- 
press and tyrannize, the condition of his subjects was still 
miserable ; that he had the power, if he but exercised his 
will. 

This repudiation of the mutiny act, was followed by a 
refusal to comply with a clause suggested by the Governor 
and Council, to be appended to two bills granting ferries, 
providing for the free carriage of postmen, according to the 



18 

statute of 9th Anne, chapter 10, section 29, "because they 
would not seem to adopt or submit to an act of Parliament." 
On the displacing of Mr. Knox as Agent of the Col- 
ony by the Assembly, the Governor desired them to 
appoint Mr. Cumberland, but they refused, and gave the 
place to Mr. Samuel Garth, Agent for the Province of 
South Carolina. But the Governor and Council declined 
to recognise him as such, and used their private and cor- 
porate influence, to prevent his being accredited as Agent by 
any of the Boards in London. In this, the Governor and 
Council were right, and the lower House wrong ; for, cer- 
tainly, it was impolitic to appoint the same Agent for con- 
tiguous provinces, between which causes of altercation 
were frequently occurring, and in the present instance were 
actually pending, who could not be impartial to either, with- 
out meeting opposition from both. But such was the zeal 
of the commons for the sustainance of their prerogative, 
that no consideration weighed, when a compromise of that 
was required. Having thus thwarted the Governor, and 
in a variety of ways evinced their contempt of the au- 
thority of Parliament, they presented a petition to the Gov- 
ernor, desiring " that he would dissolve them," the object 
of which appears to be, that by the new election which 
would ensue, a still larger majority of liberal delegates 
would be returned : the political strength of the existing 
House, being seven Royalists, and eighteen Liberty Boys. 
These proceedings were immediately represented to the 
King, and the Earl of Shelburne, His Majesty's principal 
secretary for the southern colonies, wrote to Governor 
Wright, that "it is scarce possible to conceive to what 
motives to attribute a conduct so infatuated, in a province 
lately erected, and which has been so singularly favored 
and protected by the mother country." " And I have it," 
says the Earl, " in command from His Majesty, to inform 
you that he expects and requires, that the Commons House 
of Assembly of Georgia, will render an exact and complete 
obedience in all respects whatever, to the terms of the 
mutiny act." To punish the Assembly for their refusal to 
comply with its requisitions. General Gage withdrew all the 
troops from the Province, thus leaving the forts unmanned 
and the settlements without defence. This was a chas- 
tisement as arbitrary as it was severe ; but it was a two- 



19 

edged sword ; for, while the people complained of it as ex- 
posing them to the mercy of their slave population, and the 
attacks of Indians, whose hostile intentions had already 
been strongly evinced, the Governor, also, lamented the 
measure, as cutting him off from the only means whereby 
to enforce his Majesty's authority ; and the matter, at the 
next session, was mutually and happily adjusted. 

While however Georgia experienced, in common with 
the other colonies, the usurpations of Parliament, she had 
grievances peculiar to herself which greatly increased her 
opposition to the mother country. To facilitate the opera- 
tions of trade, provincial paper, to the amount of seven 
thousand four hundred and ten pounds, had been issued by 
act of the assembly, in 1761, which bills were current at 
par both in Georgia and Florida. The merchants and 
traders, finding this sum insufficient, for mercantile pur- 
poses, now peUtioned both houses of assembly for relief 
" from the want of a sufficient currency, in a province 
where, by the peculiar situation of its commerce, and pro- 
duce, they are precluded from the advantage of receiving 
any quantity of bullion, or retaining what little they may 
receive." It was proposed, therefore, to recall the old 
emission, and issue new paper to the amount of twenty 
thousand pounds. In support of this measure, the growth 
of the colony, and the increased demand for an augmenta- 
tion of its circulating medium were urged, with much zeal 
and cogency. Within the previous seven years the Pro- 
vince had doubled its inhabitants. From forty-four vessels 
loaded in 1760, there were 173 cleared in 1766. Property 
had risen, and every thing bore a proportionable value. 
But the Governor, though he thought the present bills of 
credit too limited, conceived that the sum of twenty thou- 
sand pounds was too large, and supposed that twelve thou- 
sand would meet the emergency. In this the Governor 
was doubtless correct, for, as he justly observed, "every 
hundred pounds more paper currency than is really neces- 
sary for the daily or common occurrences will prove injuri- 
ous," by depreciating its value, increasing the rate of ex- 
change, preventing the circulation of sterling money, and 
producing a fictitious wealth which the intrinsic condition 
of the colony could not by any means support. His coun- 
sel, however, was unheeded ; the question was made tribu- 



20 

tary to the absorbing theme of parliamentary wrongs, and 
joined by the upper house, they presented a petition to the 
king for the relief they desired, who, however, refused their 
prayer. 

On the 25th of March, 1765, the assembly passed an act 
" for the better ordering and governing of negroes," &c. 
and on the 6th of March, 1766, " an act for encouraging set- 
tlers to come into the province." Both of these laws were 
founded in strong necessity. The very existence of the 
colony depended on the former, and its prosperity and 
increase on the latter. Judge, then, of the dismay both of 
the governor and assembly, when the Royal disallowance 
to them arrived. They were astounded at the interference 
of the prerogative to such wholesome and equitable meas- 
ures, and the Governor, who declared that " without the 
negro law no man's life or property would be safe a mo- 
ment," was compelled to disobey his instructions, and fiame 
a new bill, with a different title, but of the same provisions. 
Operadng upon minds already excited, these refusals irri- 
tated the people to an intense degree, who felt with peculiar 
poignancy such kingly vetoes. No wonder, then, that the 
Governor said of the assembly, that " though he had hither- 
to kept them within tolerably decent bounds, yet that he 
had lately discovered more than ever, a strong propensity 
to be as considerable an independent, as they term it, of the 
British Parliament or of the sovereignty of Great Britain, as 
any of the northern colonies." 

On the 11th of April, 1768, Benjamin Franklin was ap- 
pointed Agent, to solicit the affairs of this Province in Eng- 
land, and a committee of both houses selected to correspond 
with him. This appointment was as honorable to those who 
conferred, as to him who received it. The fame of Franklin 
had extended over Europe. His dignified manners, his pro- 
found knowledge, his grand discoveries in physical science, 
and his uncompromising support of colonial rights, conspired 
to render him the noblest representative which Georgia 
could select for that critical period ; and he was pronounced 
by Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords, "an honor not 
only to Europe but to the age in which he lived." When 
he appeared at the bar oi-ihe House of Lords, every gallery 
and avenue was crowded with anxious listeners ; at the 
Privy Council, his earnest eloquence gained him respect and 



21 

admiration, and he, "who with the thunder talked as friend 
to friend " and made the lightnings the garland of his fame, 
could listen unmoved, to the philippics of his enemies, and 
fearlessly assert the claims of America amidst the lowering 
frowns of nobles and princes. Despising every preferment 
which royalty could offer, he devoted himself to the meliora- 
tion of his country's wrongs, saying to the distressed colo- 
nist, even in the midst of a popularity, such as no American 
had ever before possessed, thy people shall be my people, 
and thy cause my cause. Such was Georgia's Agent, who 
for five years represented her at the offices in England, and 
who ever stood forth her undaunted champion, in every hour 
of danger and of trial. The onerous enactments of Parlia- 
ment called forth, from nearly every province, petitions, re- 
monstrances and addresses. On the 11th of February, 1768, 
the Massachusetts House of Representatives addressed a 
letter to the various colonial assemblies, setting forth the con- 
dition of American grievances and soliciting a union of peti- 
tions to the King and the two Houses of Parliament. The 
Georgia Assembly had adjourned when the circular arrived, 
but Mr. Alexander Wylly, the speaker, replied to it "as a 
private person," and stated, that "the Assembly had instruct- 
ed Doctor Franklin to join with the other agents in solicit- 
ing a repeal of these acts and in remonstrating against any 
of like nature for the future." When the Assembly met, 
this letter, and the Virginia Resolves, were taken into con- 
sideration, and, though Governor Wright used every means 
to prevent their countenancing "the Boston Letter," as he 
termed it, though he expostulated with the leading members, 
and harangued the whole body in the council chamber, 
and though, as he said, " he clearly convinced them of the 
absurdity of it," yet the House, almost unanimously, passed 
similar resolves, and so effectually did they steal a march 
upon the wary Governor, that he himself says "every thing 
was prepared and done before I could prevent it." In con- 
sequence of this, the Governor immediately dissolved the 
Assembly, not however before warning them " that if Amer- 
ica was to become independent of the mother country, from 
that day you may date the foundation of your ruin and 
misery." Had he possessed the true spirit of vaticination, 
instead of predicting misery and ruin as the consequences of 
that independence, he would have foreseen peace and pros- 
3 



22 

perity ; and, in prophetic visions of our future greatness, 
would have exclaimed with the son of Beor, " Blessed is he 
that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee." 
Finding all appeals to the throne unheeded, the Americans 
determined to redress themselves, and one of the primary 
measures adopted was, a suspension of all commercial deal- 
ings with Great Britain except for such articles as were ab- 
solutely and unequivocally necessary. Such non-intercourse 
could not fail of producing the most disastrous results in the 
mother country, whose prosperity was so intimately blended 
with the colonial trade. Mr. Grenville, Lord of the Treas- 
ury,, asserted, that " every inhabitant of the colonies employs 
four at home." " It was American trade," said the Earl of 
Chatham to the Peers, "which triumphantly carried you 
through the last war," and the eloquent Burke declared in 
the House ef Commons, " that whatever England had been 
growing to by a progressive increase of improvements brought 
in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests 
and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred 
years, you shall see as much added to her by America in a 
single life." It was hoped, therefore, that the withdrawal of 
such important resources, and the misery consequent on such 
a procedure, might work that change in the ministry, which 
all the petitions and remonstrances had failed to efTect. 
This plan was suggested as early as April, 1768, by the 
Boston merchants, but the Assembly of Virginia, in June, 
1769, was the first legislative body which adopted resolves 
of non-importation and which, ere long, were sanctioned by 
the other colonies. 

On the 16th of September, 1769, a meeting of the 
merchants and traders of Savannah was held at the house 
of Mr. Alexander Creighton, at which they resolved " that 
any person or persons whatsoever importing any of the 
articles subject to parliamentary duties, after having it 
in their power to prevent it, ought not only to be treated 
with contempt, but also as enemies of their country." 
Three days after, a larger meeting was convened, with the 
Hon. Jonathan Bryan, one of the Governor's Council, in the 
chair; at which the same subject was renewedly canvassed, 
and resolves of non-importation, mostly similar to the other 
colonies, unanimously passed. One of the resolves, based 
on the sentiments of the Bostonians in 1765, was, to abolish 



23 

mourning at funerals, as the black stuffs used for such pur- 
poses were of British manufacture. Yes, rather than submit 
to an arbitrary taxation, the son could bury his father with- 
out the garments of the mourner, the bereaved husband 
forego the weeds of his affliction, and the mother commit 
her first born to the grave, with no habiliments of maternal 
sorrow ; the weeping eye, the widowed bosom, the break- 
ing heart, ay, even death, and the grave, could not separate 
them from their beloved liberty ! Subdue such men ! Soon- 
er would the raging waves of the Hellespont be calmed by 
the chains of Xerxes, than the spirit of freemen be lashed 
into obedience by the iron thongs of a vindictive ministry. 

For the part which Mr. Bryan took in this meeting, he was, 
by command of the King, displaced from the council, and 
thus became the first object of royal vengeance in Georgia. 
Carrying out into detail the fundamental principle, that there 
should be no taxation where there was no representation, 
the Assembly, in 1769, inserted a clause in the annual tax 
bill exempting the four southern parishes from taxation, be- 
cause they were allowed no members in the legislature, and 
this decisive stand produced in due time the required writs 
of election for the vacant parishes. There was a constant 
struggle between the Governor and the Assembly, the former 
asserting, that they arrogated to themselves the prerogatives 
of Parliament, that they exercised indecorous privileges, and 
usurped authority which the Royal instructions never vested 
in that body. The Assembly, on the other hand, claimed to 
be the sole legislative body, to be the only exponents of con- 
stitutional right, and the only depositary of political power ; 
that they would be under no executive dictation, and sub- 
mit to no infringement of their rights. Twice had the Gov- 
ernor dissolved the Assembly ; but the time had now arrived 
when a new agent of royal power was to be employed in 
humbling their pretensions to the supreme control of the 
colony. 

At the opening of the Assembly, in 1770, Doctor Noble 
Wimberly Jones, one of the morning stars of liberty in Geor- 
gia, was unanimously elected Speaker; but the Governor 
put a negative on his election, and sent the House back to 
make a new choice. This proscripdon, which was designed 
as a rebuke to Doctor Jones, was more honorable to him 
than the commission which authorized it, and ranked him at 



2"4 

once, with Otis, negatived by Sir Francis Bernard ; and with 
Hancock, negatived by Hutchinson. To them, the intended 
stigma, though for the moment mortifying to personal pride, 
was like the honorable wound of the soldier, the proud scar 
of a contest, which rescued almost a hemisphere from thral- 
dom. The Assembly resented this insult to their elective 
franchise, and passed a resolution complimenting Doctor 
Jones, and declaring " that the sense and approbation this 
House entertain of his conduct, can never be lessened by 
any slight cast upon him in opposition to the unanimous 
voice of the Commons House of Assembly in particular, 
and the Province in general." And they furthermore re- 
solved, "that this rejection by the Governor of a Speaker 
unanimously elected, was a high breach of the privileges of 
the House, and tended to subvert the most valuable rights 
and liberties of the people and their representatives." This 
bold assertion was termed by the Council, a " most indecent 
and insolent denial of his Majesty's authority ;" and the 
Governor at once dissolved the Assembly. 

On the 10th of July, 1771, the Governor, availing him- 
self of his Majesty's leave of absence, returned to England, 
and the administration devolved on James Habersham, the 
President of the Council, whose thorough knowledge of the 
Colony, whose long experience in public affairs, whose pure 
and upright character, and whose Fabrician firmness, emi- 
nently fitted him for this responsible station. But the part 
which he was called to act, by the royal mandate, was ex- 
ceedingly repugnant to his generous nature. His orders, 
however, were imperative, and compliance was unavoidable. 
In consequence of the resolutions of the last Assembly, 
which denied the authority of the Governor to negative their 
choice of a Speaker, the King commanded Mr. Habersham 
to signify his disapprobation of their conduct, and that he 
should, for the purpose of renewedly testing the question 
and to compel them to obedience, negative whoever might be 
first chosen as their next Speaker. The Assembly met on 
the 21st of April, 1772, and Doctor Jones was elected, who, 
on being presented to President Habersham, was, by virtue of 
his instructions, negatived. On a second ballot he was again 
elected, and again rejected. At the third trial, he was still 
their choice, but dechning to serve, Archibald Bullock was 
chosen, whom the President accepted. But when, on examin- 



25 

ing the journal of the House the next day, he ascertained 
the third election of Dr. Jones, of which he was hitherto ig- 
norant, he sent them word to suspend all business until that 
minute was erased ; but as the House resolutely refused to 
expunge it, he ordered the Assembly to be dissolved. 
These repeated interruptions in colonial legislation produced 
serious and alarming consequences. The treasury was over- 
drawn, and no provision made to replenish it; statutes of 
importance had expired, and no new enactments supplied 
their places ; the judiciary was deranged, and no means 
were adopted to rectify it ; and new necessities, civil and 
legal, had arisen, requiring legislative action, but the conven- 
tions of that body had been rudely dissolved, and the politi- 
cal existence of the colony was vitally endangered. These 
oppressions increased the adherents of the colonial cause. 
The flattering promises of the ministry to redress their griev- 
ances, had not been fulfilled, but new sources of distress had 
augmented those already existing, and cloud upon cloud, 
each darker and more foreboding than the former, was cast- 
ing its gloom over their firmament. The passage of the Bos- 
ton Port Bill, March 31st, 1774, by which Parliament pre- 
cluded all commerce with that city ; followed by another 
which deprived Massachusetts of its chartered privileges ; 
together with a law for sending state criminals to England 
" to be butchered in the King's Bench," hurried on the ca- 
tastrophe of war. 

The designs of George the Third were now unmasked, 
and Lord North boldly declared that he would not listen to 
the complaints of America until she was at his feet. The 
words, indeed, were those of the favorite minister, but the 
sentiment was the King's. " I attribute," said General Con- 
way, in the House of Commons, " the very disagreeable situ- 
ation we are now in, to the weakness of our counsels, and to 
a series of misconducts ;" but he looked only to visible and 
secondary causes ; he saw but the external machinery, and 
not the motive power which originated its operations ; for, 
had the gallant soldier advanced one step beyond, he would 
have discovered the cause in the personal feelings of his 
Prince, wrought up to desperation by the oppugnation of his 
prerogative, not only by the Americans, but also by the op- 
position he experienced in Parliament, where " that trumpet 
of sedition," as he termed Lord Chatham, made the walls of 



26 

St. Stephens ring with the defence of oppressed millions. 
"If the people will not stand by me," said he, not once, or 
twice, or thrice, merely, when, stung almost to madness by 
the conduct of the Whigs, he threatened to abdicate. " If the 
people will not stand by me, they shall have another King." 
And when Lord North, like a wise Palinurus, foreseeing the 
danger, desired to retire from the helm of state, it was the 
constraining importunity of the King, which alone kept him 
at his post. The machiavelian fiction, which, making the 
ministers amenable for political failures, asserts that " the 
King can do no wrong," turned, indeed, the storm of a na- 
tion's wrath from this monarch, upon his officials ; but it is 
nevertheless true, that the severe measures pursued towards 
America, originated oftener with the King than with the Pre- 
mier, and that the very effort to accomplish his absorbing 
idea, "the preservation of the empire," resulted, through his 
obdurate rancor, in its irretrievable disunion. Whatever 
might have been the effect of conciliatory measures, had they 
been pursued prior to the passage of these acts, it was now 
too late. The favorable moment had passed, and the thir- 
teen colonies of America were lost to him forever. Remon- 
strances had failed ; petitions had failed ; defensive measures 
had failed ; and, in common with the other Provinces, Geor- 
gia, the last settled, and the last to renounce allegiance to 
the Crown, addressed herself to the sacrifice of every thing 
but hberty. 

On the 20th of July, 1774, a notice appeared in the Geor- 
gia Gazette, calling a meeting of the inhabitants for the 27th, 
to take into consideration these and other proceedings of 
Parliament, and John Glen was chosen Chairman. Letters 
were read from .the various committe.es of correspondence, 
and resolutions discussed, of similar tenor to those of the 
northern associations. But, in order that the whole Col- 
ony might be represented, and take part in this matter, 
the meeting was adjourned to the 10th of August, when a 
series of resolutions was unanimously agreed upon, declar- 
ing the Boston Port Bill, and other arbitrary enactments 
"contrary to natural justice and the spirit of the English 
Constitution." A committee was also appointed to receive 
subscriptions for the suffering Bostonians, and such was the 
ardor of their sympathy, that in a few hours, six hundred 
tierces of rice were contributed, few subscribing less than ten 



27 

casks each. The question was also discussed at this meet- 
ing, whether deputies should be sent to join the deputies of 
the other colonies, at the general Congress, which passed in 
the negative, owing to the illicit voting of some of the gov- 
ernment officials. The parish of St. Johns, (now Liberty 
County,) dissented from this negative, and on the 30th of 
August resolved, "that if the majority of the other parishes 
would unite with them, they would send deputies to join the 
general committee, and faithfully and religiously abide by 
and conform to such determination and resolutions as should 
be then entered into, and come from thence recommended ;" 
and the articles of the Continental Association, emanating 
from that body, were adopted by the St. Johns people, on 
the 1st of December. On the Sth of December, fifteen 
deputies were chosen in Savannah, to meet with those elected 
from other Parishes, in Provincial Congress, on the 18th of 
January, 1775. The General Assembly met also on that day, 
and the critical situation of American affairs occupied a pro- 
minent place in the speech of the Governor, and the answers of 
both branches of the Legislature. But though he urged 
them to discountenance the resolutions of the other colonies, 
the Assembly almost unanimously adopted those passed by 
the Continental Congress, on the 14th of October, 1774, set- 
ting forth, in the strongest light, the oppressive measures of the 
ministry towards America. 

While this body was thus engaged, the deputies to the 
Provincial Congress had convened, and on the 23d of Jan- 
uary, forty-five of them entered into a non-importation, non- 
consumption, and non-exportation association, to which they 
solemnly bound themselves to adhere. On the same day, 
Archibald Bullock, Noble Wimberly Jones, and John Hous- 
ton, were elected delegates to the General Congress, to 
convene in Philadelphia, in May, 1775. To these proceed- 
ings the people of St. Johns took exceptions, because they 
extended the time for closing the port from the 1st of De- 
cember to the 15th of March, which they declared contra- 
vened the purposes of the Association. The Committee of 
that parish accordingly withdrew from the Provincial Con- 
gress, on the 21st of January, alleging that the committees 
of the several parishes now sitting, are not, and cannot be 
called a Provincial Congress, because the greater number of 
parishes in this province are not represented therein ; but 



28 

this was erroneous, as seven of the twelve parishes sent del- 
egates to the meeting. On the 9th of February, therefore, 
they addressed a letter to the General Committee in Charles- 
ton, praying to be received into their Association, and de- 
puted Daniel Roberts, Samuel Stevens and Joseph Wood, to 
present the same. But the Carolinians refused the petition, 
on the ground of its militating with the 14th article of their 
Condnental Association, which precluded all intercourse with 
a province, not acceding to the full terms of their Associa- 
tion; Baffled on this point, they determined to apply to the 
Philadelphia Congress, and having the port of Sunbury in 
their district, prohibited all dealings with Savannah, and on 
the 25th of March, elected Doctor Lyman Hall as a dele- 
gate to Congress, who, under certain restrictions, was ad- 
mitted into that august body. 

At this period the parish of St. John possessed nearly one 
third of the entire wealth of the province ; and its inhabit- 
ants were remarkable for their upright and independent char- 
acter. Sympathizing, from their New England origin, more 
strongly with the northern distresses than the other parts 
of Georgia, and being removed from the immediate supervi- 
sion of the Governor and his Council, they pressed on with 
greater ardor and a firmer step than her sister parishes. 

The time for action had arrived, and the irresolution of fear 
had no place in their decisive councils. Alone she stood, a 
Pharos of Liberty in England's most loyal province, renounc- 
ing every fellowship that savored not of freedom, and refusing 
every luxury which contributed to ministerial coffers. With 
a halter around her neck, and the gallows before her eyes, 
she severed herself from surrounding associations, and cast 
her lot, while as yet all was gloom and darkness, with the 
fortunes of her country, to live with her rights, or die in their 
defence. Proud spot of Georgia's soil ! Well does it de- 
serve the appellation which a grateful state conferred upon 
,it, and truly may we say of its sons,.in the remembrance of 
their patriotic sacrifices, " nothing was wanting to their glory, 
they were wanting to ours." 

The hesitation on the part of the other parishes in Geor- 
gia to adopt all the measures of Congress, was the theme 
of violent and unjustifiable denunciation. A momentary 
glance at the condition of Georgia, will remove these un- 
founded aspersions. According to the returns of Governor 



29 

Wright to the Lords of Trade, the population of Georgia in 
1774, was but seventeen thousand whites, and fifteen thou- 
sand blacks ; and the entire militia, between the ages of six- 
teen and sixty, numbered only two thousand eight hundred 
and twenty-eight, scattered from Augusta to St. Mary's. 
Within her borders, and along her frontier, were the Creeks, 
with four thousand gun men, the Chickasaws with four hun- 
dred and fifty gun men, the Cherokees with three thousand 
gun men, and the Choctaws with two thousand five hun- 
dred gun men, comprising all together, over forty thousand 
Indians, ten thousand of whom were warriors, and all, by 
means of presents and the influence of Captain Stuart and 
Mr. Cameron, were firm in their alliance with the royal party, 
and could be brought in any numbers against the colony. 
On the south, lay the garrisoned province of Florida with a 
large military force under Governor Tonyn, and hordes of 
tory bandits waiting for the signal of the spoiler. On the 
east was a long line of seaboard, with many fine harbors, 
sheltered bays, large rivers, well-stocked islands, and every 
thing inviting for a naval depredation. And the Earl of Dart- 
mouth had directed General Gage and Admiral Graves, to 
furnish Governor Wright with any force, military and naval, 
which he might require. Besides these motives, which ad- 
dressed themselves to the fears of the colonists, there were 
others, which partook of a moral character. Since its settle- 
ment, Georgia had received, by grant of Parliament, nearly a 
million of dollars, in addition to the bounties which had been 
lavished on the silk culture, indigo, and other agricultural 
products. This consideration weighed with much force on 
many minds, and on such, the Governor took every occasion 
to impress the baseness of ingratitude towards a sovereign 
whose paternal care had been so largely exerted in their 
behalf. Each of the other colonies also had a charter upon 
which to base some right, or claim of redress, but Georgia 
had none. When the trustees' patent expired in 1752, all 
her chartered privileges became extinct. On its erection 
into a royal province, the commission of the Governor was 
her only constitution, she had no fixed and fundamental basis, 
but lived upon the will of the monarch, the mere creature of 
his volition. At the head of the government was Sir James 
Wright, Bart., who, for fourteen years, had presided over it 
with singular ability and acceptance. When he arrived in 
4 



30 

1760, the colony was languishing under the accumulated mis- 
management of the former trustees, and more recent Gov- 
ernors. But his zeal and efforts soon changed its aspect to 
health and vigor. He guided it into the avenues of wealth, 
he sought out the means of its advancement; his prudence 
secured the amity of the Indians ; and his negotiations added 
millions of acres to its territory. Diligent ia his office, firm 
in his resolves, loyal in his opinions, courteous in his manners, 
and possessed of a vigorous and well-balanced mind, he ruled 
the province more by suasion and argument than by menace 
and force. Instead of being, like many of the royal Gov- 
ernors, obnoxious, he was beloved by his people, and though 
he differed from the majority of them as to the cause of their 
distresses, and the means for their removal, he never allowed 
himself to be betrayed into one act of violence, or into any 
course of outrage and revenge. The few years of his ad- 
ministration were the only happy ones Georgia ever enjoyed, 
until after the revolution ; and to his energy and devoted- 
ness, mainly, is to be attributed her civil and commercial 
prosperity. With these obstacles within and around her, is 
it to be wondered that Georgia hesitated and wavered ? that 
she feared to assume a responsibility which threatened inevi- 
tably to crush her? Her little phalanx of patriots, but little 
outnumbering the band of Leonidas, were men of Spartan 
hearts ; but Spartan hearts, even at Thermopylae, could not 
resist the hosts of the Persians ; and what had they to hope, 
in her feeble state, her inhabitants rent with discord, her me- 
tropolis filled with placemen and officers, her seaboard guard- 
ed by a fleet, and her frontier for too hundred and fifty miles, 
gleaming with the tomahawk of the scalper, and the fires of 
the warrior's wigwam 1 If there ever was a time for Georgia 
to falter, it was then ; and falter she did, — but only for a mo- 
ment, for, soon summoning her energies, she cast aside all 
fear, and commending her cause to the God of battles, joined 
in the sacred league of independence. 

The attempted seizure of the military stores at Concord 
and Lexington, and the battles consequent on that proce- 
dure, impressed the Americans with the necessity of securing 
all provincial munitions, and preserving them for colonial use. 
Accordingly, on the night of the llth of May, 1775, the day 
after the news of the first skirmish with the British troops 
had arrived, Noble Wimberly Jones, Joseph Habersham, and 



31 

Edward Telfair, with a few others, broke open the King's 
magazine, at the eastern part of the city, and took from it 
over five hundred pounds of powder, part of which they 
sent to Boston, where it was used in the battle of Bunker 
Hill ; thus uniting, on that field, the heroism of Massachu- 
setts and of Georgia, joining them, at the cannon's mouth, in 
the first great contest of the revolution, to be disunited, — 
never. 

On Monday, the 5th of June, the first liberty pole was 
erected in Georgia, and such was still the desire of the 
people for reconciliation on constitutional principles, that 
it was erected on the day celebrating His Majesty's birth ; 
and, at the dinner immediately after, amid the discharge of 
artillery, under the fold of the liberty flag, the first toast 
drank was, " the King;" the second, "American Liberty." 

On the 22d of June, a Council of Safety was appointed, 
and on the 15th of July, Archibald Bullock, John Houston, 
Rev. John J. Zubly, D. D., Doctor Noble Wimberly Jones, 
and Doctor Lyman Hall, were elected delegates to Congress, 
four of whom presented their credentials to that body, Sep- 
tember 13th, 1775. Thus the confederation of the colonies 
was rendered complete ; the first requisite for successful re- 
sistance. 

The resolves of non-importation, passed by the Provincial 
Congress, on the 6th of July, 1775, were to take effect on 
the 10th of September, by which all trade with Great Brit- 
ain, the West Indies, and every colony which had not agreed 
to the rules of the Continental Association, ceased. By no 
circumstance was the firmness of Georgia more tested, than 
by the support of this Association. Nearly half of its pop- 
ulation were slaves, grouped in various numbers on scattered 
plantations, dependent on their masters, whose supplies were 
thus cut off" without a possibility of present relief. Vessels, 
indeed, frequently arrived with the necessaries required, but 
the continental articles were rigidly enforced, and they de- 
parted without opening their cargo or coming up to town. 
The self-denial of the Georgians was the more conspicuous, 
in that they had none of the internal resources possessed 
by the northern colonies. Their staple products were rice, 
lumber, indigo, skins, &c., which found their market in the 
West Indies, or Great Britain, and were there exchanged for 
commodities needed at home ; but this traffic was now closed. 



32 

Of bullion they had been nearly drained by northern traders 
who would take only specie for their articles ; and their 
paper currency was daily depreciating. Manufactures 
they had none, and the precarious trade on which they de- 
pended for supplies, was not at all adequate to their de- 
mands, for, in addition to the usual dangers of the sea, their 
proximity to the naval rendezvous of Bermuda, the refugee 
province of Florida, and the fleet-covered Archipelago of the 
West Indies, enhanced to such a degree the hazard of com- 
mercial intercourse, even with the parts which were open, that 
twenty per cent, was often demanded for insuring vessels 
bound to the southern provinces, and soon, no policy, at any 
premium, could be obtained for a clearance to Savannah. 
The ships with their cargoes lay idly in our waters, or, at- 
tempting to run out, were seized by the enemy. The wheels 
of the saw-mills stopped, because there was no demand for 
lumber ; the spade and the hoe rested in the field, for their 
use, save for the purposes of domestic consumption, realized 
no gains, and conferred no benefit : the whole industrial ma- 
chinery of the province vt^as suddenly arrested, and distress 
flung her tattered mantle over the once blooming fields, and 
flourishing hamlets of Georgia. But patriotism hushed every 
repining murmur, and they counted not their own lives dear 
unto them, if they might but successfully maintain the cause 
of freedom. 

In June, 1775, Governor Wright wrote to the Earl of Dart- 
mouth, " a few troops twelve months ago would have kept all 
the southern provinces out of rebellion ;" and, according to 
the direction of the noble Earl, the Go\iernor, that same 
month, wrote to General Gage and Admiral Graves, soliciting 
immediate assistance, which would have been promptly ren- 
dered, but for the interception of the letters by the Commit- 
tee of Safety at Charleston, and their transmitting by the 
post others, stating that Georgia was quiet, and no occasion 
existed for the troops or vessels which they had been com- 
manded to hold subject to his order. The ships and soldiers 
were consequently withheld, and it was not until Sir James 
Wright, casually meeting General Gage in London, some 
years after, inquired the cause of his non-compliance with so 
pressing a request, that the forgery was revealed to them. 

In consequence of the arrival of several men-of-war at 
Tybee on the 17th, the Council of Safety, on the 18th of 



33 

January, 1776, resolved to secure the person of Sir James 
Wright, to prevent his communicating with the officers on 
board, and thereby assisting their operations against the 
State. Joseph Habersham, a youthful patriot, undertook the 
task. Proceeding that very afternoon to the house of the 
Governor, who had assembled a few officers at a dinner 
party ; he passed the sendnel at the door, entered the hall, 
bowed politely to the company, then marched to the head of 
the table, and laying his hand upon the shoulder of the Gov- 
ernor, said, " Sir, you are my prisoner." The party, aston- 
ished at his boldness, and supposing, from his firm manner, 
that a large force was surrounding them, fled in the utmost 
precipitation through doors and windows. The Governor 
gave his solemn parole, but on the night of the 11 th of Feb- 
ruary, he escaped from his house, went in haste to Bona- 
venture, and thence in an open boat to the Scarborough, of 
twenty guns. Captain Barclay, where he arrived at three 
o'clock in the morning. This deed was one of the most sig- 
nal instances of deliberate and daring prowess, in the history 
of the war. For a youth of twenty-four, unarmed and un- 
supported, to enter the mansion of the Chief Magistrate, and 
at his own table, in broad day light, and amidst a circle of 
officers, each of whom had some weapon of defence, and 
place him under arrest, is an act of heroism ranking with the 
most brilliant exploits of Roman or of Grecian fame. It was 
the sublimity of courage. Some months previous to this. 
Sir James Wright had asked leave to return to England, say- 
ing in his letter soliciting permission, " that a King's Gov- 
ernor has little or no business here," and this request had 
been granted. Colonel Campbell being appointed to the 
provisional magistracy, until the occupation of Savannah by 
the British forces, under Provost, when, in 1780, Sir James 
again assumed the government. From his retreat in the Scar- 
borough, he wrote to the Assembly, desiring them to procure 
fresh supplies for the fleet ; but they refused, and the vigi- 
lance of the Council of Safety prevented its obtaining any, 
except by rifling the vessels, which attempted to elude the 
blockade. Pacific negotiations having failed, force was re- 
sorted to, for the purpose of capturing the eleven rice ships 
which lay under the bluff", waiting to proceed to sea. On the 
last of February, 1776, the Scarborough, Hiclinbroke, St. 
John, and two large transports, with soldiers, came up the 



34 

river, and anchored at " five fathoms." This was a demon- 
stration not to be misunderstood. On the 2d of March, the 
Council of Safety convened, and passed a resokition, " that 
all the shipping in port be dismantled, and that the valu- 
ation of the houses of those appertaining to the friends of 
America be taken, for the purpose of burning the same, ra- 
ther than suffer the British to possess them. And with a 
devotion akin to that of Decius and Codrus, not one dissent- 
ing voice was raised against the measure, though the enforc- 
ing of it would make nearly every member of the Council a 
beggar. What said the Carolinians now ? They, who but a 
few years before, termed Georgia, " that infamous colony ?" 
and who scarcely a twelvemonth back had resolved " to hold 
her inhabitants as inimical to the liberties of their country ?" 
What thought they of those daring measures ? Their Pro- 
vincial Congress, in a letter signed by its President, Mr. 
Henry Drayton, declared it " noble, patriotic, vigorous," and 
that " it was an instance of heroic principle, not exceeded by 
any, and equalled but by few, in history." 

Having previously sounded Back river, two of the vessels 
on the 2d of March sailed up that channel. One anchored 
directly opposite the town, and the other grounded at the 
west end of Hutchinson's Island in attempting to pass round 
it and come down upon the shipping from above. During 
the night, the troops from the first vessel under Majors Mait- 
land and Grant, were silently marched across Hutchinson's 
Island, and embarked in merchant vessels which lay on the 
other side. When the morning of the 3d of March, 1776, 
revealed the proximity of the naval and military force, the 
inhabitants were filled with the utmost indignation. The 
grounded vessel was immediately attacked by a company of 
riflemen under Major John Habersham, who soon drove every 
man from its deck, and would have made it his prize, but 
having no boats to effect it, he had the mortification of see- 
ing her float off at high water and escape. In the mean 
time General Mcintosh had collected a few troops, and 
despatched a flag of truce with several officers, to demand 
why the soldiers had been brought up to town, and placed 
in merchantmen in the river ? The flag was detained ; an- 
other, sent to learn the cause of the detention, was denied 
admittance ; and firing upon the soldiers who had insolently 
ordered it off, received in return a volley, which wounded 



35 

one man, and so shattered the boat that it with difficulty 
reached the shore. Having no artillery of sufficient calibre 
to dislodge them, an order was given to set the vessels on 
fire. In the afternoon a few adventurers, among whom was 
General James Jackson, — he, who was in the first and the 
last batde in Georgia, proceeded to the ship Inverness, load- 
ed with rice, deer skins, &c., which they set on fire, and 
slipping her cable, she drifted with the tide upon the brig 
Nelly, which was soon wrapped in flames. The officers and 
soldiers precipitately abandoned her, and in their confusion 
threw themselves in the half-drained and uliginous rice fields, 
whence they were extricated the next morning, with the loss 
of their arms and ammunidon. Two other vessels were also 
consumed, and the invaders totally routed, not however 
without the sacrifice of several valuable lives. The scenes 
of that day and night were solemn and terrific. The sud- 
den marshalling of troops, the alarm of the people, the hur- 
ried death-volley, and the vessels wrapped in flames, every 
mast a pinnacle of fire, their loosened sails fanning the ele- 
ment which was destroying them, and making the darkness 
hideous with a lurid glare, combined to form a scene of 
awful and soul-stirring sublimit}^ Hitherto, they had but 
heard of British aggression, but now, their own soil was moist 
with the blood of their slain ; their quiet homes had been 
assailed ; their property pillaged ; and their province threat- 
ened with devastation and ruin. The crisis had arrived, — 
they met it hke heroes. 

Gentlemen of the Historical Society, I have thus in feeble- 
ness and brevity attempted to trace the progress of revolu- 
tionary proceedings in Georgia, from their incipiency, until 
the first blood had been spilt in its borders. But the most 
interesting part of that contest yet remains ; the sanguinary 
scenes of New England were to find an answering token in 
the gushing life-tide of our own citizens, the blazing horrors 
of Charlestown and Falmouth, were met by the responsive 
flames from our own dwellings ; and the earthquake-voice 
of misery, which rose from the suffering thousands of other 
colonies, was echoed back by the wretched and destitute of 
our own besieged and war-stricken province. 

The revolution found Georgia the most defenceless, it 
scourged her the severest, it left her the weakest of the thir- 



36 

teen colonies ; but, though often cast down, she did not de- 
spond ; though overrun, she was not subdued ; " faint, yet 
pursuing," she never relaxed her efforts, and never with- 
held her aid. The motto of her illustrious founder, "Nescit 
cedere," was inscribed on every banner, and her soil, con- 
secrated by the blood of a Mcintosh, a D'Estaing, a Screven, 
a Pulaski, was, — is, — and ever shall be, — the soil of pa- 
triotism. 

It is well, in coming up to celebrate this birth-day of our 
State, that we should gather together the several Socie- 
ties which this day honor us with their presence. A day, 
whose thrilling associations should be hallowed in all coming 
time, by the citizens of Georgia. United as we are, in the 
various relations of life, the ties of our union extend even to 
the earliest annals of this commonwealth. We are con- 
nected by a long series of eventful and blending histories ; 
and though now arranged under the badges of our respect- 
ive associations, we are all protected by the same broad folds 
whose stars and stripes have become the universal watch- 
word of the free. 

Casting my eye in historic retrospect across the ocean, 
and the "ocean-girted isle" into the heart of Europe, I see 
an assemblage of way-worn travellers enter a city of Nassau, 
singing the-songs of Zion as they walk. A rude cart con- 
veys their few worldly goods, and two covered ones help on 
their toilsome journey ; the aged parent, the feeble wife, and 
the helpless infant. The charity of the benevolent supplies 
their v/ants, their confidence in God supports their strength ; 
the distant hills have shut out the last view of the homes of 
their youth, and a wide ocean stretches its stormy waves 
before them. Who are these ? and where are they going ? 
They are the exiled Saltzburgers journeying to the Ameri- 
can Canaan. They are the future settlers of Georgia, des- 
tined to give shape and tone to its whole character, who in 
a few months pitched their tents in the squares of our city, 
and who shortly ended their wanderings by the erection of a 
village, to which, in the spirit of Samuel of old, they gave the 
name of Ebenezer, feeling with the prophet, that hitherto 
the Lord had indeed helped them. Gentlemen of the Ger- 
man Friendly Society, these were from your father-land, the 
pious pilgrims of the old world, the noble and upright citi- 
zens of the new, whose industry, integrity and worth will 
ever be conspicuous in the records of our State. 



37 

But the inviting voice of Georgia did not sound only in 
the ancient feudatories of Germany. It echoed among the 
castled crags and highland glens of Scotland, and the Gaelic 
mountaineer paused in the chase to listen to its winning 
tones. Nor did he listen in vain. Beneath his industry the 
wilderness smiled in the gladness of habitable life, and the 
town of New Inverness (now Darien) started up at his bid- 
ding. When hostilities began with Spain, it was a highland 
band which marched to the walls of St. Augustine, and ex- 
hibited almost superhuman prowess at the surprise of Fort 
Moosa ; and when, in turn, the same foes invaded Georgia, 
it was then, also, a highland regiment, which repelled their 
chosen troops at the memorable battle of bloody Marsh, and 
whose valor rescued both Georgia and Carolina from im- 
pending destruction. How appropriate, then, that the rep- 
resentatives of Scotia's sons, whose Claymores saved Geor- 
gia a century since, and whose Mclntoshes and Stewarts 
were gallantly conspicuous in the revolution, should gather 
with us this day, marshaled under the banner of their patron 
saint, to recount the deeds of their countrymen and ours. 

Attracted by the dazzling descriptions of Georgia, large 
emigrations from Ireland hastened to the spot, which, in the 
language of Waller, had been portrayed as " kept by heaven 
uncurst, to show how all things were created first ;" and 
settled the villages of Highgate and Queensboi^ough. But 
waving the ties which thus early associated Georgia and Ire- 
land, and confining ourselves to the period of the revolution, 
let us behold, there, the strong links which bound us to each 
other. Shall I speak of Colonel John Dooley, the terror of the 
tories, who was inhumanly butchered by a party of them in 
the bosom of his family for his bold partisanship in the cause 
of America ? of the well-known Paddy Carr, who himself 
had killed over a hundred of the enemy, notching his rifle for 
every victim of his aim, and who, on being complimented on 
his conduct, replied, that "he would have deserved the 
merit, but for his heart, which nature had made too tender 
and compassionate for a soldier ? " Shall I recall the memory 
of Sergeant Jasper, whose name is but a synonyme of 
bravery, and who fell gloriously at the siege of Savannah ? 
Or shall I narrate the marvellous exploit of Colonel John 
White, who, with only four companions, and by a stratagem 
surpassing even the legends of chivalry, captured at Sun- 
5 



38 

bury, five British vessels ; one mounting fourteen guns, the 
others four guns each, containing one hundred and eleven 
soldiers, forty seamen, and one hundred and thirty stand of 
arms ? These, gentlemen of the Hibernian Society, were 
all Irishmen, the generous sons of the shamrock-isle, who 
nobly devoted themselves to the cause of the colonies, and 
shed their blood in its defence. 

Nor are there ties wanting to unite us with the worthy 
fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons. He who founded 
Georgia instituted the first Lodge within its borders. Its 
brethren have been among the most illustrious of her sons. 
Its spirit has saved the life of many a patriot from the torture 
of the savage. Its symbols, like a rainbow of mercy, have be- 
tokened the covenant of peace even amidst the rudest scenes 
ofw^ar; and the foes and the freemen have met under its 
arch in security, and separated friends. Yea, more, gentle- 
men, that sacred volume which is borne with reverence be- 
fore you, is the gift of Oglethorpe. Precious relic of your 
founder ! holy memorial of his friendship ! Long may it be 
cherished by you as a thrice hallowed treasure ; hallowed, 
as the revelation of Jehovah ; hallowed, as the corner-stone 
of your institution ; and hallowed, as the gift of him who 
erected on this spot the first colony which charity ever 
founded for the poor, the distressed, and the persecuted. 

The retired sphere in which woman moves, affords but 
few incidents to engage the pen of the historian. There are 
periods, however, which call forth the strong characteristics 
of her mind ; which draw her from the restricted orbit of 
domestic life and elicit those subhme traits of fortitude, cour- 
age and firmness, which make us acknowledge her superi- 
ority and her worth. Such a period was the American revo- 
lution when the fortunes of the colonist were shrouded in 
gloom, and a night of despair at the failure of so many 
schemes, was gathering its blackness around them, then it 
was, that they developed those sterling attributes of patriot- 
ism and self-devotion which made even the "raven down of 
darkness smile." It was a woman who gave to the patriots 
of Boston the first intimation they ever had of the approach- 
ing hostilities of the 19th of April, 1775. It was a woman 
whose vigilance saved the army of Washington at Valley 
Forge, and throughout the seven long years of that struggle, 



39 



there were no higher instances of patriotism exhibited than 
by those who had sent their fathers, their husbands, their 
brothers, their sons to the battle field, and waited in their 
desolate dwelling the sound of every footstep, lest it should 
bring the intelligence of sorrow and bereavement. You, 
daughters of America, who enjoy the broad sunlight of 
liberty, little know the painful watchings, the pinching want, 
the dismal wretchedness, the anguished bosoms, and the 
breaking hearts of the heroines of the revolution. In this 
province, owing to their proximity to the Indian territory, 
their sufferings were peculiarly severe. Their husbands 
were butchered by their sides; their dwellings committed to 
the flames ; the scalps of their sons strung around their 
necks ; their babes torn from their arms to be dashed against 
the stones ; exposed to every insult and brutality ; the price 
of blood upon their heads without, and famine staring at 
them from their hearths within. Such was the price which 
many a wife and mother and daughter paid for your freedom. 
The record of their trials no pen can write, the worth of their 
struggles no mind can conceive. Silent and unseen to mor- 
tal eye, their prayers craved blessings on their country's 
arms, and their charities ministered to the suffering soldiery. 
They were clad by the garments of their needles ; fed by the 
provisions which their jewels purchased ; cheered by the 
encomium of their smiles ; led to victory under banners 
which their hands wrought ; and, to their cooperation should 
be ascribed an eminent degree of that glory which encircles 
the name of " Time's last and noblest offspring." 

This day completes one hundred and eight years since 
Oglethorpe, with his little company, ascended in a few peria- 
guas the Savannah, and landed on this bluff. They came, 
but a handful of men, in feebleness and insecurity ; they 
pitched their large tent under the overshadowing pines, and 
guarded by a few soldiers from Carolina, and the warriors of 
Tomo Chichi, composed themselves to their first slumber on 
the soil of Georgia. A century has passed ; and she who 
was then almost a century behind the other colonies, has 
now a proud eminence among her sister States, enjoying a 
large domain, a teeming population, a productive agriculture, 
a lucrative commerce, a flourishing literature, a noble scheme 
of internal improvement, and sharing largely those blessings 
of civil and religious liberty, which she so largely contributed 



L:..,r,''^ O*" CONGRESS 



40 




011 711 807 1 



to secure. We are now reaping the fruits of the labors of 
our fathers; the struggle is over — the conquest has been 
achieved — the noble inheritance of freedom is ours. Let us 
not separate this day without gathering from the past some 
lesson of wisdom, which we can carrj forward to the future. 
When the son of Ulysses, in that beautiful fiction of Fenelon, 
arrived at manhood, his guardian Mentor, throwing aside his 
veil of flesh, and revealing to him his celestial form, said to 
him, " I have guided you through rocks and quicksands,' 
through the ensanguined battle, and the various calamities 
incident to the human species. I have taught you, through 
forcible experience, the good and the bad maxims, by which 
government may be carried on; it is now time that you 
should be free. Love your fellow -creatures ; endeavor to 
renew the golden age ; avoid effeminacy, profuseness, and 
ostentation. Let simplicity be your best ornament ; on vir- 
tue and your own just actions, rest your chief security." 
Practise these directions, fellow-citizens, and "pure liberty, 
peace, delightful abundance and unsullied glory shall ever 
attend you." 



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